Time's Long Ruin Read Free

and she was always putting it back on. She always wore long pants. This day it was a pair of old brown cords, worn through on both knees and frayed on the cuffs. Her hair was browner than her sister’s, but flatter, manageable, turned up at the ends like a German helmet from Hitler’s war. Her face was rounder than Janice’s and her features were smoother – her eyebrows thin and rounded, like the curve of an arum lily, as they dropped onto her button nose.
    I turned my attention to Janice. As she tried to get up I dropped on top of her. I held her arms down and put my face an inch or so in front of hers.
    â€˜Henry,’ she said, speaking slowly and deliberately.
    â€˜What y’ gonna do?’ I asked.
    â€˜Get off.’
    And what she wanted to say, If I didn’t have to go easy on you . . .
    â€˜The little ones can’t help you now.’
    â€˜Get off.’
    She pulled her arms loose, shoved me in the chest and I fell back heavily.
    Anna looked at her older sister. ‘You shouldn’t do that.’
    Janice turned to me. ‘So what?’ She walked back around to the adults. Anna and Gavin stared at me for a few moments and then followed her. I sat up, crawled over to a fence post and managed to stand. Then I walked through the Rileys’ front gate to the street. I went across to our house, walked down the drive to the backyard, and shuffled into the old rabbit hutch.
    I sat on a pile of old tyres, dropped my head onto my chest and closed my eyes. Across in the Rileys’ yard I could hear Bill still singing. Everyone – Liz, Mum, Dad, Janice, Anna and Gavin – had joined in.
    â€˜Where’s Henry?’ I heard Mum ask.
    â€˜He went out the front,’ Janice replied.
    â€˜Where to?’
    â€˜Dunno. Maybe the playground.’
    â€˜Go look for him please,’ Liz interrupted.
    â€˜Mum.’
    â€˜Go on,’ Bill insisted, still singing.
    Janice set off down the drive, followed by Anna and Gavin, holding hands. ‘Can we go on the swings?’ Gavin asked.
    â€˜No,’ Janice replied, calling, ‘Henry, where are you?’
    As the singing continued I removed a brick from the back wall of the rabbit hutch and took out a rolled-up exercise book. It was a diary and book of thoughts, a playscript and novel, an art book, a collection of scientific observations, and anything else that came into my head. I still have it, yellowed and scribbled over, covered with twenty-year-old beetroot and rice pudding stains.
    I opened the book to a new page and a freshly sharpened HB pencil fell out. I ruled under the last entry and then wrote:
    The Chiropracter, A Short Story by Henry Page
    Janice followed Dr Gunn into his workroom. He told her to lay face down on a long, leather-covered bench. She climbed a small ladder and did as he asked. Then she felt his cold hands on her legs.
    Ten minutes later they imerged from the workroom. Janice’s left leg had been turned back to front and she limped as she walked. Her right arm had been twisted behind her body and her right hand turned upwards. And worst of all, her head had been turned around to face the other way.
    â€˜What have you done?’ she asked the doctor.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ he replied.
    â€˜What do I mean!?’
    The doctor took two shillings from his change pocket and placed them in her upturned hand. ‘Youll be right tomorrow . . .’
    The music had stopped. Bill Riley was talking quietly, as though he didn’t want to be heard by the kids, although there were none around.
    â€˜I tell you, Bob, I’m waiting at the back of his shop with me samples when I hear this dog start to bark. I go to the window and this thing jumps up, yappin’ its head off. Then I’m lookin’ around his backyard: tyres, bumper bars, car doors . . . and then guess what I see?’
    I stopped writing and listened carefully.
    â€˜This story gets better every